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How come WikiLeaks is distributing this? I don't see any meaningful connection to government transparency or even corporate transparency... this has nothing to
by morpheuskafka 8y ago
How come WikiLeaks is distributing this? I don't see any meaningful connection to government transparency or even corporate transparency... this has nothing to do with abuse of power, it is completely normal and rightful for a company to keep its infrastructure locations secret. Some of this could be found through public records, etc. and that fine to post, but internal operating procedures are not.
Sure, it's fun to look at. But the only people who will really benefit from this being leaked are AWS competitors and malicious actors intending to disrupt international communications.
- mey 8y agoWikiLeaks may not have the mission statement you think it does.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoInsert some bullshit about working with Russia, bla, bla, bla, China, Iran, any country the U.S. doesn't like? If so, I don't think that's it, as much as the DNC would like to detract from conspiring against Sanders. WikiLeaks does have biases, sure, like Assange not liking Clinton, since she called for his droning, however if you actually read more about WikiLeaks than the surface reports, it is simply that they believe in complete transparency of powerful actors to hold them to account. Amazon currently bids for CIA contracts and runs most of the popular internet, so I guess they'd fit that definition. Remember, Wikileaks was loved by Democrats in the Bush era and hated by Republicans, now it sort of reversed due to Trump. I presume it will switch again in 2020. I just wish people would be a bit more honest about this.
- wstuartcl 8y ago... It is not about Republicans or Democrats -- the reality is that it is operating in a way where we can all be assured it is not doing so in "our" best interest, but instead for some other nation-states purpose. Just because the party you identify with seems to be helped by something they have done recently does not mean you should take them as being honest actors.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago> "the reality is that it is operating in a way where we can all be assured it is not doing so in "our" best interest, but instead for some other nation-states purpose" The reality is that WikiLeaks has exposed a lot of information that we should know, I have yet to see solid evidence it's done for another nation state. > Just because the party you identify with seems to be helped by something they have done recently does not mean you should take them as being honest actors. Agreed, but I am also not going to believe the talking points of a party apparatus that cheated one of its own candidates. Would you? I am not even a U.S. citizen, so I have no dog in this race, but I am well aware that both of the parties do anything to deflect from their own failures and now it's the Democrats, since they lost. What have the Democrats done to offer a truly progressive platform, instead of the centrist one that lost them the election? Sure, they blame Russia 24/7, but that doesn't offer voters anything. Many Democrats in Congress vote with Trump and the Republicans well over 50% of the time, so this whole thing looks to me like a sham.
- scrollaway 8y agoI don't remember on which occasion it was -and can't find it now-, but recently (post-2016) both Assange and Wikileaks were clearly riling people up against Snowden. That's right about when I stopped caring what they had to say (and it's such a hard departure from the 2013-era Assange who was supportive of Snowden).
- AsyncAwait 8y agoI did not hear about this, have a link?
- ceejayoz 8y agohttps://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/758781081072046080 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/758781081072046080
- ceejayoz 8y ago> if you actually read more about WikiLeaks than the surface reports, it is simply that they believe in complete transparency of powerful actors to hold them to account That simply isn't borne out by the evidence. They whined about anti-Trump leaks. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817322050297745408 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817322050297745408
- AsyncAwait 8y ago> They whined about anti-Trump leaks. I don't like Trump as much as the next guy, but I think we should be consistent and all leaks should be either a.) fine b.) illegal. If there are "sanctioned leaks", well that's super convenient for the current administration, but not for democracy.
- ceejayoz 8y agoThere's all sorts of discussion that can be had regarding leaks, sanctioned vs. unsanctioned, how they're used politically, etc. It remains illuminatingly inconsistent that Wikileaks would oppose certain leaks.
- sctb 8y agoIf someone posts trolls by you with political bait, please don't bite! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- minitel 8y agoIt says it right in the article. > Currently, Amazon is one of the leading contenders for an up to $10 billion contract to build a private cloud for the Department of Defense. Amazon aims to partner with the DoD, that makes them quasi governmental.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoSure, but I'd have the same question if Wikileaks published the locations of all DoD internal server farms. What possible importance does that information have beyond its potential to compromise security?
- ucaetano 8y ago> its potential to compromise security? It's a bingo.
- sschueller 8y agoDoesn't the CIA have a contract with Amazon to use AWS?
- fenk85 8y agoAlso Wikileaks have been taken over by Russian intelligence as tool in their cyber warfare operations
- azinman2 8y agoSo?
- pageandrew 8y agoThat is the connection to government transparency. The CIA is storing massive amounts of our data somewhere, so shouldn't we have the right to know where?
- danvasquez29 8y agoI don't believe so, not if the risk to the general public is great enough.
- staticautomatic 8y agoThe public is far more at risk with the CIA around to begin with, so long as it continues to carry out bullshit interventions around the world that so often come back to bite us. The primary impediment to enumerating these risks is the CIA's lack of transparency.
- giarc 8y agoWhy? Why does knowing where it is located a "right"? I feel US citizens have a right to know who is storing the data, and the parameters they must follow. Also you should have a right to know where the data is located, as in "in the USA". But beyond that, isn't having the actual address a security concern?
- 8y ago
- ErikVandeWater 8y ago> AWS competitors benefit Wikileaks desires a world in which there is high competition between web service providers so none of them gets too powerful. This is consistent with their objectives.
- wnevets 8y agoWikileaks desires whatever putin tells them to desire.
- nabla9 8y agoAmazon is making local governments to compete against each others for data center locations, so it's in the public interest to know the locations. For example, you can compare at the location, electricity cost, infrastructure, tax schemes and tax revenue etc. in local level and see how important they are for Amazon and maybe even estimate the benefit of having Amazon. The location of Amazon data centers is not hidden from it's large competitors, or any adversary.
- Latteland 8y agoAnother perhaps less known aspect of these tax giveaways is that the details are kept secret. They are often embarrassingly huge giveaways, that's one of the reasons they aren't public [1]. I wish we could stop corporate giveaways. I love the software work that amazon is pioneering, they are pushing the envelope, doing great work, enabling companies to grow and do new things. But they are one of the richest companies in the world, they shouldn't get tax credits, imho. I don't think this location info should make it risky. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-candidates-keep-pitches-secret-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-candidates-keep-p...
- privateprofile 8y agoI absolutely agree. Essentially, corporations with huge revenue streams get major tax advantages that are not available to local companies in exchange for "creating jobs". It turns out that each of those jobs is so costly to taxpayers that the only real benefit is for the politicians that announce the "partnerships" (and the receiving company, obviously). Here's a couple of interesting articles on the matter: - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-ba... - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jul/02/how-much-does-a-tech-bro-cost https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jul/0...
- ksajadi 8y agoThen shouldn’t they publish the documents showing those giveaways instead which surely makes more sense, doesn’t put AWS customers at potential risk and holds local governments accountable? The simple thing is to put anything you get your hands on online under the opaque umbrella of public interest. The responsible thing to do is to run with it, find the local governments in those areas and file requests for the records of any transactions to be made public. That would be in public interest. Dumping anything that has a SECRET written on it is not always a good thing.
- qubax 8y agoIt's a trillion dollar company headed by the wealthiest man in the world with ties to the pentagon and owns the washingtonpost. Why is it that whenever wikileaks leaks anything, people whine about it?
- fenk85 8y agoBecause wikileaks is a tool belonging to Russian state
- QuinnyPig 8y agoI'm not sure why Russian intelligence cares about AWS datacenter locations. This has largely been an "open secret" for a long time. If you want to know where an AWS datacenter is, ask local taxi drivers and pizza delivery folks. These things are huge, and very hard to hide.
- cafard 8y agoWhich assumes that you know the locale. I imagine that there is one in Ashburn, Virginia, maybe an hour's drive from here. But what pizza delivery operation would I ask? I guess I could hail a cab at Dulles and ask to be taken there.
- QuinnyPig 8y agoThe locale is "the region as announced publicly," and anyone who's in a position to use this information is going to pay more than one person to start digging. It's a crowdsourcing problem.
- AndyMcConachie 8y agoIt's from 2015.
- xkcd-sucks 8y agoNothing to hide, nothing to fear and all that. But also, voters might be interested to know if Amazon has a large mostly-invisible presence in their city.
- jlarocco 8y agoI don't know the answer, but the question works equally well flipped around. If they have it, why not release it? Hiding the information to ward of malicious actors and AWS competitors is security by obscurity, and not reliable. It's nearly impossible to hide a giant data center, so a dedicated person can track most of them down anyway. I'd be more sympathetic if Amazon weren't holding a competition to see which city would give them the biggest tax breaks. It's only fair that everybody sees what other deals they're getting.
- irrational 8y agoFrom what I've seen Wikileaks releases all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with the things you mentioned. As for the AWS information, I'd be hesitant to have my data hosted at the one in Oregon, it's right next to a bombing range! One bombing mishap...
- mvanbaak 8y agoIf you follow the AWS best practices you have nothing to worry. Hint: use multiple availability zones and regions
- walrus01 8y agoIt's not like you can hide a datacenter from aerial photos or space based photography. Giant air handling units and 1 megawatt+ sized generators are huge. You could theoretically camouflage one, but they're built in a cost-sensitive manner, it would cost millions to actually "hide" a datacenter from IMINT techniques.